Autumn Term 2nd Half 

In Autumn 2 we kicked off out topic with a classroom crime scene. We used the clues to investigate the disappearance of the gingerbread man which opened a gateway to lots of learning about traditional tales. We baked gingerbread men using our senses to explore, made gingerbread men out of playdough, and used our phonics to write and segment words.  We celebrated Diwali with Indian food tasting and made our own clay Diva pots. We made rangoli patterns out of coloured rice and designed our own Mendhi patterns.

We learn a new letter sound every day and this helps us to read new words by blending them together. Once we know how to blend we read 3 times a week  as the practise helps us get better. 

We really enjoyed the Stick Man story looking at the changes in weather and had lots of fun making our own stick man cakes which were delicious. We compare the length of sticks and sorted them by type.  As the weather turned colder we had fun in the snow catching snowflakes on our tongues and making snowmen outside painting ice and snow. 

We began to get excited about Christmas learning all about the nativity story and re enacting this using costumes and drama in our role play area. We wrote letters to Santa,  performed a super carol concert outside for our grownups, and had a Christmas party and Disco. 

We have been exploring the composition of numbers, looking at what numbers live inside other numbers we can find lots of different combinations. We were excited to try bucket school on the big school field making shapes out of sticks. We have been on a 3D shape hunt and made shapes outside in teams. 

We love learning every day in foundation inside and outside whatever the weather and can't wait to see what the new year holds. 

Autumn Term 1st Half

Class 1 and 2 have had an amazing start in Foundation 2! We are very proud of how well they have settled into new routines and how hard they are trying with all aspects of their learning

This half term has been ‘All about me.’ The children have been talking about themselves and their families. We have practiced drawing ourselves using paint and crayon and looked in a mirror to notice our facial features. Also, children have created collages of themselves using a person shape cut out. We have read lots of books about families, who we live with and why they are important to us. Children have been invited to share photographs on class dojo that we have enjoyed sharing and discussing in class. We have also taken part in lots of activities around making others welcome in class and around school.

Also, this half term we have read a variety of books to the children linked to our topic. They really enjoyed hearing ‘The Colour Monster’ by Anna Llenas and ‘The Suitcase’ by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros. ‘The Colour Monster’ text explored feelings and the children helped to create their own feelings jars and monsters to discuss with others. In the text ‘The Suitcase’ children explored feelings of kindness and a sense of belonging. The children really enjoyed meeting the main character from the story and looking inside the suitcase to reveal what was hidden.

We have also taken the opportunity in Autumn to explore nature and visited Barkers Park and the wooded area as part of our local visit. Children have looked closely at different trees, the colour of the leaves and the berries and nuts growing. At Barkers Park the children were excited to walk through the woods and listen for the sound of birds and squirrels. They explored the differences in trees and the variety of coloured leaves and leaf shapes on the ground. We then collected long sticks and made Autumn wands using leaves, string and a bell. Everyone was then very excited to find as many conkers as they could to bring back to school!

We have ended our half term with Conservation Week. The children have learned all about bees, why they are important and how to look after them. They have been involved with listening to a variety of visitors that have promoted conservation. Children have been excited to make their own bees out of yellow and black playdough, draw bees on a honeycomb, make honey biscuits, sing and perform bee songs and read story books all about bees.

This academic year we have started a new phonics programme called Little Wandle. The children have practiced a different grapheme each day and new high frequency words. All children have really embraced the new phonics scheme and can now confidently identify the sound of the graphemes taught and segment and blend CVC words. In addition to this all children are now taking home a reading book to share with a grown up.

In Maths we have learned our numbers up to 10 and all the different ways we can see numbers through subitising. The children have looked at different pictures and videos to identify amounts. We have also looked at simple 2-D shapes and identified the names of common shapes and patterns. This has linked to our art work on Kadinsky that uses shape within his art.

Overall the children have settled brilliantly and we are so proud of them. We can’t wait for more amazing learning next half term!